A memory of other languages.

A bit ago, the one resthome resident who always gives me candy from her candy dish was talking about the customers they used to get in at the shop that she worked at as a shop girl for many years.

With the (Yiddish)-speaking customers, she could usually get by with her (German), but the ones who spoke (Russian) were tough.

One time, these ladies kept saying that they wanted "sauce" but saying it more with an "oh" sound, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what they were saying.

So, finally, she was like, "What is it for?" or something like that, and they said to wash clothes, and then she realized that they were reading the brand S.O.S. like it was a word.

Two Walt Whitman tidbits:

1) Last time I was at the post office, they were advertising Walt Whitman stamps, but they didn't actually have any available.

2) At an outdoors pizza-and-drinks going away party that I went to this summer, a (non-tenured) college instructor who I met there said that there had been this whole hullaballoo (sp.?) recently in the gen ed curriculum that he teaches in, since some kids said that they shouldn't assign Walt Whitman's poetry since he's racist, and then all of the teaching staff had to have this whole meeting and try to reason through the kids' perspective and look at things from their way or whatnot and then agree on what to say to the kids, even though it wasn't all of the kids, just these kids from this one particular section.

Generosity of Strangers.

A few months ago when I had hopped off the subway and was on my way to a doctor's appointment, I was on the platform and walking briskly and this (older) (black) panhandler angled up to me from the side and was like, "Excuse me sir, can we talk...", and I was like "No" without looking at him and I kept on going like I usually react when that happens, but this (younger) (black) couple who was like ten feet ahead of me turned around and saw me walking fast and were all like, "Don't worry, it's okay, nothing will happen to you" all very nicely, and then I realized that they must have thought that I had gotten all freaked out by the panhandler, so I was like, "Oh no, it's okay, I'm just on my way to a doctor's appointment!" or something like that, to try to reassure them.

But, wasn't that nice of them?

A truly great Fourth of July.

A few weeks ago at the resthome right after the Fourth of July, I was catching up a bit with my one (Togolese) coworker.

I asked her if she did anything over the Fourth, and it turns out that like everyone she knew was throwing barbecues, and she went to three that day in the city alone, and could have gone to more out in the suburbs where her friends moved to if she had felt like driving that far.

I can't remember exactly what she said, but I think they were cooking beef and goat and chicken, and when I asked her if there was hotdogs and hamburgers, she was like, "No, these were African barbecues."

I also asked her if everyone was vaccinated, and she said yes, that all her friends had been vaccinated.

In any case, she said it was great, and she was out all day and didn't get back home until like eleven o'clock at night.

Two huge bottles of lemon juice.

When my one assisted living client with disabilities was moving, I got some different cast-offs that I needed or could plausibly use, like a few pencils, and 2 gigantic bottles of lemon juice.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all that lemon juice, but I figured that I could do something with it, so I took it.

As it turns out, I add it to my iced tea now, and I also rub some in my hair before every time I go out, to give myself highlights!

I'm already through like over two-thirds of one bottle.

Two memories...

 ...of the one resthome resident who always encourages me to get candy from her candydish:

1) When she and her mom and her brother arrived in the U.S., their dad had shaved off his little moustache since he thought it looked too much like Hitler, but they were used to it on him, so they made him grow it back.

2) Unlike this picture of her and her brother with a German shepherd when she was a little girl, she says that she never got used to (American) dogs, since right after she came here one chased her all the way to school, and she got away from it, but she saw it bite another child.

A resthome exchange, on tiredness.

Last month at the resthome, I went to go check in on the one super chill resident and there she was in her living room on her couch and she exclaimed to me out of nowhere, "Oh, why am I so tired?".

So, I was like, "[Her name], you're eighty-nine. What, did you think you'd have energy at this age?"

"I know," she was like. "But I try!"